‘You Have Zero Privacy’ Says an Internal RCMP Presentation. Inside the Force’s Web Spying Program

guest · Nov 18, 2020

‘You Have Zero Privacy’ Says an Internal RCMP Presentation. Inside the Force’s Web Spying Program
‘Project Wide Awake’ files obtained by The Tyee show efforts to secretly buy and use powerful surveillance tools while downplaying capabilities
November 16, 2020
https://thetyee.ca/News/2020/11/16/You-Have-Zero-Privacy-RCMP-Web-Spying/

A 3,000-page batch of internal communications from the RCMP obtained by The Tyee provides a window into how the force builds its capabilities to spy on internet users and works to hide its methods from the public.

The emails and documents pertain to the RCMP’s Tactical Internet Operation Support unit based at the national headquarters in Ottawa and its advanced web monitoring program called Project Wide Awake.
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The files include an internal RCMP presentation that contradict how the force has characterized Project Wide Awake to Canada’s privacy commissioner and The Tyee in past emails. A slide labels the program’s activities “Social Media Surveillance,” despite the RCMP having denied that description applied.

Other members were jokingly dismissive of public concerns about privacy violations — a training slide for the project says: “You have zero privacy anyway, get over it.”
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The documents reveal the RCMP:

Gained permission to hide sole-source contracts for Project Wide Awake from the public through a “national security exception.”

Discussed “tier three” covert operations involving the use of proxies — intermediary computers located elsewhere — to hide RCMP involvement with spying activities.

Purchased software with an aim to search “Darknet,” which it defined to include “private communications” and those from “political protests.”

Has used a tool to unmask lists of “friends” on Facebook for users that specifically set friends’ information to private on the platform.

Took the names for Project Wide Awake and other internet surveillance programs from the X-Men comic book series, in which illegal government programs hunt human “mutants.”

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The Tyee first revealed in March 2019 the existence of Project Wide Awake which experts said could pose a threat to Canadians’ privacy and charter rights, and the same month filed a freedom of information request to the RCMP to find out more.
The release of the files took a year and a half, following a complaint to the watchdog federal Office of the Information Commissioner. This is the first of more Tyee articles to come based on what we received.
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The Tyee has contacted the RCMP for comment on aspects of the released documents, including privacy protections, secrecy and how its web surveillance fits into investigations, and will include its responses in future pieces.
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guest · Nov 25, 2020

Has used a tool to unmask lists of “friends” on Facebook for users that specifically set friends’ information to private on the platform.
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RCMP Confirms It Bought a Tool that ‘Unlocks’ Hidden Facebook Friends
After a Tyee investigation, Facebook sent a desist notice to the maker who pulled the product
November 23, 2020
https://thetyee.ca/News/2020/11/23/RCMP-Confirms-Tool-Unlocks-Hidden-Facebook-Friends/

The Nova Scotia division of the RCMP bought use of a tool designed to “unlock” lists of friends that Facebook users set to be hidden.
The Web Identity Search Tool was also built to extract entire user timelines from Facebook.

But now, following a Tyee investigation and a Facebook legal complaint to WIST’s developer LTAS Technologies, the Toronto-based company has removed marketing information about the tool from its website and its CEO has told The Tyee the product is “discontinued.”
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LTAS Technologies restricted WIST customers to police and other “investigators,” according to its site, requiring credentials be submitted to purchase a license.
Using WIST, police could select a Facebook user who had set friends to private, or seen by “only me,” and watch as the tool scoured the internet for leads from other accounts and filled in the missing friend list.

“Nova Scotia RCMP (NSRCMP) purchased a 1 year licence of the WIST software which showed promise at being able to identify, organize and export associates/friends lists,” Sergeant Andrew Joyce said in a Nov. 20 email to The Tyee.
Joyce could not say when the contract began and ended, but the tool appears to have been in use in 2017, based on files obtained by The Tyee.
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LTAS Technologies CEO Allen Atamer told The Tyee that WIST was “discontinued” and declined to answer any further questions on the timing.
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‘You Have Zero Privacy’ Says an Internal RCMP Presentation. Inside the Force’s Web Spying Program

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